A reporter asked John McCain if he was willing to support President-elect Obama’s agenda as President.  To which Senator McCain replied, “Obviously“.

In a joint statement issued after their first meeting since the presidential election, the former rivals said they hoped to work together on challenges such as the financial crisis, creating a new energy economy and protecting the country’s security.

“At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time,” the statement said.

“It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family,” they said.

I’m curious to know if the two rivals would be so cordial if the economy wasn’t in such a dump-hole.  Or if there wasn’t a two front war still raging.  Or if the auto industry wasn’t about to collapse.

Then again, Sen. McCain was known for his across the aisle discussions in the Senate.   That’s where he got such a “Mavericky” nickname.  Of course he spoiled all of that by pandering too far to the conservative right during his Presidential campaign.  So does that mean we’ve got Sen. McCain back as he used to be?  It’s nice to see the McCain that I had a vast amount of respect for two years ago (and honestly considered voting for at the time).  I think you’d be hard pressed to argue that the man didn’t change to fit the GOP mold during this last year.  It’s what cost him the Presidency in the end.

A bigger example couldn’t have been set than the meeting between McCain and Obama today.  After only two weeks after election day, they made amends with no time to spare.

I thought about calling it “Links for Hump Day”, but then remembered that I can’t stand people who call Wednesday “Hump Day”.  heh heh heh… anyway.

• Sarah Palin has been all over the place granting interviews to anyone who will listen to build up momentum for her possible run for Prez in 2012, quite a stark contrast to her limited interviews as Veep Candidate, meanwhile John McCain dropped by Leno and injected a good amount of humor to his lost bid for the White House. Something to be said for losing graciously.

• On the other side Prez Elect Obama has come up with a rough estimated cost for his Health Care plan- $75 billion to insure 95% of Americans, or roughly $2,500 per newly insured person.  Is that cost maintainable?  One other shortfall of the proposed deal- not enough Primary Care Docs to go around.  Hmm… looks like we’re sticking to the drawing board for now.

• Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 6 others were wounded by an Iraqi soldier in Mosul today, there is a debate over what exactly occurred with both sides having a different story, but this comes as sad news as the U.S. is in the midst of handing over most of Iraq to the Iraqi military and police forces, we’ll have more details as they come to light.

And just so we don’t end on a bummer note…

• Prop 8 may have stopped Same-Sex Marriages in California, but they’re just starting up in Connecticut. A month after the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage, today marked the first marriage license applied for.

I came across an amazing article by Politico about the support from military veterans the Republican party has enjoyed for the last thirty years.  After analyzing the voter turnout information, there’s something funny going on with military voters:  they’re moving Dem!

In the past two election cycles, Democrats have added ten new Democratic veterans to Congress. Last week, President-elect Barack Obama helped close the gap among military voters, winning 44 percent of veterans as opposed to John F. Kerry’s 41 percent in 2004.

To anyone who survived the bruising campaigns of the 1990’s, the thought that the Republican Party would surrender its stranglehold on military voters seems unbelievable. But the reality is that this image was never more than surface deep. All those political operatives who seemed to care so deeply about the heroic service of Republican nominees in 1992 and 1996 thought nothing of denigrating and attacking the service of Al Gore and John Kerry when it was the Republican candidate who had avoided serving in Vietnam.

But the really fascinating part is that military personnel haven’t always cared so much whether a candidate was a Republican or a Democrat.  It’s a relatively recent trend that we’re seeing more service members and veterans voting for Republicans.

Republicans did not always have a lock on military voters. Prior to Vietnam, military service was seen as an obligation of all Americans – regardless of political affiliation or wealth. George H.W. Bush and John F. Kennedy were both sons of privileged, politically-connected families who served heroically in the military during World War II. Back then, this was seen as your duty as an American – and no political party could lay an exclusive claim to the flag.

The Republican strangle-hold on military voters is actually rooted in nothing more than a campaign strategy:

The GOP’s ability to market itself as the “Party of the Military” grew in large part from schisms in the electorate arising during the Vietnam era. For a generation, Republicans exploited George McGovern’s 1972 campaign as a means to brand Democrats as unpatriotic and weak on national security – never mind the fact that McGovern flew 35 bombing missions over Europe during WWII and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.

It was during these formative years as a budding Republican operative that Karl Rove learned the tools of the trade. Ironically, Rove avoided serving in Vietnam so he could sharpen the political skills he would later use to brand Al Gore a fraud, Max Cleland a coward, and John Kerry a traitor. Never mind that Al Gore enlisted in the Army; Max Cleland left three limbs on the battlefield; and John Kerry fought his way to three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star.

Senator McCain was the one true American hero of the Republican party.  Something many of his counterparts could never lay claim to:

For all the GOP’s patriotic imagery and testosterone-infused rhetoric, the sad truth is that most of the current crop of Republican leaders – Rudy Giuliani; Mitt Romney; Newt Gingrich; Mitch McConnell; John Boehner; etc. – were all of age at the time of Vietnam but avoided serving in the military.

Just one more irony of the Republican party.   But at this point, is it really any suprise?

I’ve been watching the responses of various friends and acquaintances in regards to the news of the Election outcome, and it’s brought me to one conclusion. There’s something I need to say to all of you…

CHILL THE FUCK OUT!!!

Obama won, if you love it- great. If you hate it- fine. But everyone needs to chill the fuck out some.

McCain supporters, sucks for you that your guy lost, but he did. Crying racism, anti-christ, liberal media, and flat out End of the World isn’t going to suddenly make him President. He lost for many reasons, many of them his own, now is the time to accept it, deal with it, and get back to focusing on the big problems our country faces (and I swear to god if I hear one of you say “having an a-rab in office is the big problem our country faces” I will kick the shit out of your face, ok?) now we need to all buckle down and work on- the economy, lack of U.S. businesses, energy reform, foreign policy, etc… We all need to do it together. Continuing to hold on to negative bipartisan feelings will not do the country any favors.

Obama supporters, you have to understand that some of McCain’s die-hards are going to completely fucking hate you for a while. There was a whole lot of emotion invested by both sides, a borderline religious fervor, and so those feelings are going to have to cool with time, patience, and understanding. Of course, when most of you tout Obama as pretty much the second coming, of course there will be those who see him in the opposite light. He’s a man. Our country has come a long way in electing a minority into head office, in a race that has also prominently featured females, so it’s been a great day for progress, but in the end we still elected a human being. He’s not a god people, you can relax. And just because the color of the skin of the man in office has changed, doesn’t mean anything else has… yet. Just like I told McCain’s supporters above, we’ve not even STARTED fixing the country yet. Tighten your belts, buckle down, and get ready for the hard part. Casting your vote was easy, what comes next won’t be, but we still all need to work to make the changes needed to bring this country to an even higher plateau than it’s known before. So don’t get all cocky cuz your guy won. We’re not out of the woods yet.

Again, please, I beg of you. For the good of the country, everyone calm the fuck down. There’s a great potential future for our country but blind hate or blind adoration will not get us there. Hard work, and working together, will.

McCain has time and time again referred to Obama as “naive” and accused him of lacking the understanding of foreign affairs that our next President needs to possess.  McCain and Palin talk extensively about needing to trust the ground commanders, preach the success of the surge in Iraq, and how it needs to be moved to Afghanistan, belittling Obama for his talks of having to meet with the enemies and try to reach agreements, relying on more than just military means to come to resolution in our War on Terror.

Well, this time it would seem that the military mind of McCain is failing, and his declaration of needing to listen to the commanders on ground is something he should be heeding himself, as the commanders on ground don’t want another surge in Afghanistan.  It’s a separate country, with different issues and different challenges and we can’t treat it the same as Iraq.

Here’s a quote from McCain during a portion of one of the Presidential debates while discussing the surge and the success in Iraq, and what would have to be done in Afghanistan- “Sen. Obama calls for more troops, but what he doesn’t understand, it’s got to be a new strategy, the same strategy that he condemned in Iraq. It’s going to have to be employed in Afghanistan.”

Here’s General David McKiernan, Commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan- “(T)here are countless other differences between Iraq and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, it’s such a poor country, by any set of metrics you can imagine. A country that has very harsh geography. It’s very difficult to move around, getting back to our reliance on helicopters. It’s a country with very few natural resources, as opposed to the oil revenues that [Iraq] has. There’s very little money to be generated in terms of generated in Afghanistan. The literacy rate — you have a literate society in Iraq, you have a society that has a history of producing civil administrators, technocrats, middle class that are able to run the country in Iraq. You do not have that in Afghanistan. So there’s educational challenges, challenges of human capitol that I mentioned earlier.  So there are a lot of challenges. What I don’t think is needed — the word that I don’t use in Afghanistan is the word “surge.” There needs to be a sustained commitment of a variety of military and non-military resources, I believe. That’s my advice to winning in Afghanistan. It won’t be a short-term solution.”

Hmm… seems the two statements are a bit contradictory, doesn’t it?

Now, to contrast, here’s a little tidbit about how Obama is falling in line with the thinking of some military commanders:  General David Petraeus had sent a request to travel to Syria and meet with the government there to talk about ways to jointly stop the flow of insurgents crossing the border into Iraq.  His request was denied for the time being, but you have to admit the request to meet with leaders of countries that can be viewed as hostile sounds an awful lot like something one of the Candidates was suggesting, and was called “naive” for talking about, doesn’t it?

For all those voting for McCain due to his connection with the military and his faith in it’s leaders, this might be something to think about.  He seems to suffer the delusion that all the conflicts we’re currently engaged in can be handled in the same fashion, and diplomacy is secondary to military might, but even our military commanders will disagree with those opinions.

Just as I was musing that today feels like Christmas Eve for the politically obsessed, I came across this poem.

Thanks Feisty Charlie!

‘Twas the day before the election, when all through the news
The pundits and pollsters were spouting their views.

The candidates were running around all the states,
Praying like hell there would be no mistakes.

Sarah Palin was crying about the media and elite,
While John McCain was busy throwing out red meat.

And no matter how hard they seem to try,
Everyone saw right through their lies.

I think Sarah Palin needs to buy herself a clue,
In addition to her brand new expensive suit.

John McCain will regret choosing Palin one day,
I do believe that is what the history books will say.

Read the full story

How are soldiers stationed overseas voting?

The blunt answer is that most soldiers deployed overseas aren’t voting at all.

Many soldiers simply feel preoccupied with other things. Like, say, getting killed in a war zone:

Car bombs rather than Obama, making it home rather than McCain dominate the talk among many U.S. Soldiers in Iraq’s deadliest city during the final countdown to America’s presidential election.

Dangers, distance from home and the dawn-to-dark effort in an alien environment push U.S. politics into a corner for many Soldiers – especially in combat outposts where television and the Internet are not readily available.

“Regardless of who wins the election, we are going to be here 15 months. And our mission is not going to be fundamentally affected, at least in the short term,” said Capt. Justin Davis Harper after returning from a patrol into the northern city of Mosul’s most violent zone.

But even those deployed soldiers who still wish to cast their ballot aren’t getting an opportunity to because of beurocratic red tape:

The voting process for troops overseas has been criticized as overly bureaucratic, antiquated and flawed.

Soldiers must request by mail an absentee ballot from the local election district where they last lived. Then they are sent a paper ballot to fill out and mail back. Some Soldiers said they never got ballots.

[...]

“It’s cool to be able to vote out here and not miss out on what others at home are doing,” said Morton, adding that he sent in his request for an absentee ballot six months ago but only received it last week.

The number of absentee military ballots applied for that ultimately get counted is consistently low. In the last federal election, only about 30 percent of overseas military ballots were tallied, according to data from the federal Election Assistance Commission and the Pew Center on the States.

Most deployed soldiers (which are estimated to be well over 200,000 troops in several different countries) may not cast a vote but for those that will (including soldiers and veterans in the United States) their votes will be heavily favored for McCain.

How are soldiers stationed in the United States voting?

McCains extensive military experience rings loudest with military personnel who see a candidate that can sympathize with their needs greater than a candidate with zero military experience.

But there’s a catch in this election. The military has a large minority base in African-Americans and latinos who favor Barack Obama heavily.

A poll conducted by The Military Times surveyed 80,000 military subscribers in September.  The outcome show a vast majority of service members favor McCain over Obama by a 3-1 margin.

Pay attention to the votes when divided by race though.  It shows a whopping 79% of black military voters favoring Obama while all other categories show McCain firmly in the lead with military voters.

Check out the raw data here [pdf] to see a complete listing of how the U.S. military will vote.

Iron Mike.  The leader of the greatest football team ever to grace a your televion sets:  the 1985 Chicago Bears.  The immortalized demi-god of my beloved team supports McCain and found time this weekend to speak at a Sarah Palin rally in Pennsylvania:

Tear.

When an email forward actually spreads the truth:

Dear friends, In these times, with extremely serious, complicated crisises confronting us both economically and internationally, we need to have intelligent, educated people as president & vice president:

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University – B.A.
Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware – B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy – Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester
North Idaho College – 2 semesters – general study
University of Idaho – 2 semesters – journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College – 1 semester
University of Idaho – 3 semesters – B.A. in Journalism

CNN cites a McCain campaign aid as saying that Sarah Palin is deliberately going off campaign message to spite her mismanaged roll-out.

Personally, I think they’re giving her far too much credit.  They shouldn’t confuse ignorance with “roguishness”:

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls — recorded messages often used to attack a candidate’s opponent — “irritating” even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign’s decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone,” said this McCain adviser. “She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

“Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.“

Sounds like a good Republican to me.